Malacañang unconcerned about Lacson’s chapter 3

Sometime ago Senator Panfilo Lacson announced that he was going to reveal his third and final chapter on his exposés on the alleged misdeeds of First Gentleman Mike Arroyo. So far he has not come through and instead has announced that he has opted to "be physically scarce to ward off Malacañang’s determined effort to neutralize and immobilize him".

Undoubtedly, the Supreme Court’s decision to re-open the Kuratong Baleleng case has placed Sen. Lacson on the defensive. Lacson, in his own words, has gone through "one hell of a week." Now, like his fellow Senator and PMA classmate, Gringo Honasan, he has chosen to be out of the limelight. It is obvious that a high government official cannot indulge in exposés if he himself is being exposed on alleged past cases in court.

When Honasan started avoiding uncessary public exposure, he said that he was making himself "inaccessible". Lacson calls it "physically scarce". They all amount to the same thing. No one wants negative exposure.

In our analysis, Parts I and II of Lacson’s exposé have been a total dud. From the very beginning we were advising him to either present his evidence in the proper court or forget his exposé. He did not heed our advice.

From what we see, the public is not even interested to hear chapter III of his exposé. They are more interested in seeing how he will handle the Supreme Court’s re-opening of the Kuratong Baleleng case.

Some sectors have even expressed apprehensions that Sen. Lacson may flee the country or go into hiding. We don’t believe that Sen. Lacson will do that. But as he himself said, the Supreme Court’s decision gave him a "hell of a week", and we believe that he will now use his time to defend himself.

His supporters say that he can continue his exposés even if he is arrested and jailed. True, but it is more important for him to be acquitted in his case than to expose more anomalies allegedly committed by the First Gentleman.

We are not against exposure of anomalies allegedly committed by high officials. In fact, we are all for it. But they must be sustained by evidence that will hold up in court. And we certainly disapprove of exposures that are given under parliamentary immunity.

Some quarters have hinted that Malacañang pressured the Supreme Court to re-open the Kuratong Baleleng case. That in itself is an insult to both Malacañang and the Supreme Court. We have a separation of powers and the men in the Supreme Court are all persons held in high esteem.

It’s bad enough to start a quarrel with men who are not even officially a part of government. But dragging the Supreme Court into the dispute is another new low. The Kuratong Baleleng case has absolutely no connection with the rift Lacson started with the First Gentleman. The fact is, no arrests resulted from the Pidal exposé, but Lacson’s warrant of arrest may be issued as early as Monday.